Let's start with some easy ones.

Rick topping out on High Exposure (5.6), the classic Gunks climb. Early 80’s, Mike (Freeman?) led this. The Gunks were our stomping ground in the 80's and 90's. A couple of weekends a month in season we would head up to play. First with Rick, and then later, with my other partner Jim Sonneborn.

MooseDog Tower in J-Tree behind our campsite. I had met Rick just 2 months before. I had lead just one climb in my life, but somehow talked Rick into flying out to climb for a week at Joshua Tree in California. Must be the gift of Blarney from the Irish side of the family. We did this multi pitch climb to the summit the day we got there. As I was sitting on the summit belaying Rick up, I watched our tent blow away in the winds from our campsite. We had to go fetch it quite a ways off in the desert.

Rick (styling with the cool Motorcycle helmet) on the headwall Main Gully (NEI 3) Riegelsville, PA. Lowe Footfangs (Talk about Retro! he’s still using them today tho he finally got a real helmet), straight hammers and leashes, Taken somewhere in th late 70’s, early 80’s. We still climbing there today in the winter.

Ok, getting a little bit harder now. Ice but where?

The Coleman Icefall, a glacier on Mt. Baker in the Washington Cascades. We pitched base camp to the side of the glacier and spent a day playing in the icefall. The next day, we had an Alpine start at 3am and headed up for the summit. After about 10,000 kicks into the ice, my knee cartilage ripped apart high up on the glacier. We were about 1000 ft below the summit and we had to bag it. That led to the first of several knee operations for me. We didn't let a bad knee stop us. With massive quantities of Ibuprofen aka Vitamin I we headed up to British Columbia to climb at Squamish for several days.

One of the many glaciers on Mt. Blanc in the Alps. This is me preparing to throw Rick's wristwatch into the crevasse.

I spent a week bargaining with him for it, after we had to abort a sweet climb high in the Alps because we reached our turn-around time and hadn’t made the summit. We made a high stakes rappel off our high point and had a long walk back to the telephrique.

We bailed only to find out his watch was set to Moscow time zone and we had plenty of time to complete the climb. His watch is now sleeping with the frozen fishes…

Of course the bastard pulled out his spare watch of the same brand later ...

Pinnacle Gully (3+) high up in Huntington’s Ravine on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire.

After a full working day, we had driven all the way to New Hampshire from Pennsylvania through the night, getting there about 5am. We left the car at the foot of Mt. Washington and hiked up into the ravine (2+ hour hike, several thousand feet of elevation). I did the first pitch up to just above that rock in the middle of the flow. That was the crux, just 2 easy pitches to go.

Rick just wasn’t happy that day and wanted to go down. No problem, we were a team, not having fun? Move on. We rapped off a pair of sawed off aluminum electrical conduit that I used to carry for retreats. We hiked down to town, got a motel room about 2pm, hit the sauna and we both fell asleep on the bed watching tv an hour later and woke up the next morning. We were beat! Those were the days.

This was my attempt #2 on the summit of Mt Baker in the Cascades. The first one ended with a storm blowing apart the tent while we camped on the glacier and beating a hasty retreat down.

Since we were flatlanders from the East, we hired a guide from American Alpine Institute in Bellingham Washington. We spent a couple of days playing up in the glaciers, updating our glacier travel skills, working on crevasse rescue and the like. Here’s our guide, setting up a anchor high up on a crevasse wall in the icefall.

Rick and I had met on New Years Day in the early 70's for an ice seminar in the middle of Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. I had a hangover and almost bagged it but went at the last minute. Our seminar guide was an idiot and the largest piece of ice we found was about 5 feet high, but a great friendship came out of it.

By the late 70’s, we were mad for ice and willing to travel hours to play. This was a hidden ice fall, about 70 ft high, located outside of Scranton, PA that Rick had discovered when visiting his brother. If you look closely you'll see I'm using an ancient Hummingbird hammer with a tubular pick, state of the art in the 70's. Rick had eaten Mexican for lunch, and while belaying him, the effects of high altitude (50ft) and the cuisine made themselves known and I was knocked unconscious by the resulting blast.

There was a bit of a unintentional misdirection here in the original email here. This is Huntington’s Ravine, high up on Mt. Washington but the photo is reversed. (click on the photo for the correct version).

That big ice fall is Odell’s Gully. Early in our ice climbing careers we climbed that in full-on conditions, ie blizzard-like, we couldn’t see 20 feet in the storm. I lead the ice fall with one tool and then we swapped leads the next several hundred feet of the snow gully with no protection other than body belays and buried ice axes. We topped out onto the summit cone of Mt. Washington in a full white out (no visibility) with winds gusting to up to 100 mph. We ran into another party who were lost and glad to see us. Since we had never been up there before either, we weren’t a lot of help. To get down we had to traverse the top of the ravine on the summit cone blind, still roped up. The leader would wander off until he got to the end of the rope and then would traverse about at the end until he blundered into a stacked rock cairn, hoping not to fall into the ravine. A couple of tugs on the rope and the other person would be pulled in like a fish on a rope. Repeat. An hour or two later we found the spot which we hoped was the way down, a gully leading off into the white void below. We glissaded down the gully, losing my ice tools at one point and made it safely to Huntington’s valley floor. All in all, a grand alpine adventure and one I remember very fondly.

P.S. The visibility was so bad that day that for years we thought we had climbed Pinnacle Gully and had checked it off in my guide book. That’s why we went back for Pinnacle – see above. I have very little left on my tick list, but Pinnacle is still unchecked …

Late 70’s, early 80’s. Wool hats, straight axes, and our trusty Wild Things rusacks. I can't quite tell, but maybe even traditional Dachenstien wool mittens, the latest in high gear designed to freeze your fingers. Rick at the bottom of one of the New Hampshire climbs, either Pegasus or Smear, on Frankenstein Cliff in Crawford Notch. For many years, the annual mid winter trip to New Hampshire ice was a must do.

Here's the back side of the Grand Teton, looking at the North Face. Rick and I took a 3 week "Grand Apine Tour" of the West. Rick started first, taking an Outward Bound course on Mt. Baker. Out of that course he retained just 2 things, how to coil a rope Alpine style, which we still use 20+ years later, and 2nd, a case of giardia which, thankfully, only lasted our trip. I met Rick coming off Mt. Baker and from there we did some more climbs in the Cascades, Pestashin Pinnacles, and a climbing structure at the UW in Seattle. From there we flew to Jackson Hole and the Teton Range. After climbs in and around the area, we drove across Wyoming to S. Dakota for time in the Needles and routes on Devils Tower. We ended our trip climbing in Boulder Colorado in Eldorado Canyon and the Flat Irons, making my flight home by 2 mins.

Our plan here was to climb the North Face of the Grand, a classic mountaineering route. We had arranged for a guide from one of the guiding services in Jackson. We went on ahead a couple of days early with our gear and to acclimatize to the altitude. However the guide tried to blackmail us, demanding an extra $300 over what we had already paid. Being poor climbers we couldn’t afford that and blew him off. Our non-guided attempt ended just below the sub peak on the right side of the main summit.

Here's a hard one. If you ever spent any time in the mountains this should be familiar, but not especially easy to locate. Clouds, mist, rain. Where do you think all that nice pretty snow and glaciers come from? Miserable, crappy weather that's where.

This was taken on a trip into the Cascades in Washington state. Our plan was to do some classic alpine work: hike up the mountain trails to the glacier/snow fields, surmount that and then onto a nice granite ridge (5.6 or so) and follow that to the summit and then back down to the car. A full days work. A vision of a perfect day climing clean, sunny and warm granite with beautiful mountain views were awaiting us.

Our trip started with us following a muddy logging road deep into the wilderness on a grey, rainy day. Our slog up the montain was in the pouring rain, our 1st gen gore-tex having some issues keeping us dry. As we broke out of the forest up higher into the alpine zone, the rain turned to a driving snowstorm. Visibility was limited. Soaked, cold and unable to even see our objective we eventually turned around. Muddy trails proved treacherous going down and the gentle streams we forded on the way up were raging floods that we navigated gingerly in our plastic boots. Tired, wet, muddy and cold we made it back to the car many hours later without ever seeing the climb or even a glimpse of the mountain. That's alpine climbing for you.

This picture was a gimme for any climber in the Northeast: The Shawangunk mountain ridge on an early summer morning. This was taken from up top of one of the cliffs called Skytop. Off in the middle distance is the Trapps cliff, the most popular climbing area. Further away is the Near Trapps and Millbrook. Most of the Gunks is part of a private Land Preserve where climbing is a permitted use of the land. Skytop cliff actually belongs to the Smiley family who built the famous Mohonk Mountain House hotel near the cliffs and the network of carriage roads throughout the Preserve. Skytop. Sometime in the 90's climbing on Skytop was prohibited by the Hotel, but back in the 80's Rick and I made the several mile walk to the cliff for some great rock climbs.

High up on the Grand Teton. That's the Middle Teton with the Lower Saddle between both peaks. On the left side is a glacier and the path down. On the other is a pretty steep drop into Idaho. Our camp for a couple of days was in the middle of the Saddle. If you look at the hi rez photo, in the Saddle you can see a tiny brown dot. That actually is a good sized Quonset hut, the base camp for Teton Mountaineering. TM is the official guide service for the Grand, and that's where they put up their clients for the night.

Our tiny tent was nestled in some boulders several hundred yards away and can't be seen. It was hard to sleep there. We were over 10,000 feet high and the saddle is subject to continuous high winds. Imagine all the wind traveling from the West Coast with nothing stopping it until it hits the Tetons. That saddle or notch is a perfect wind tunnel with sustained winds. The camp toilet is perched just above the dropoff into Idaho. It is an exposed box with a spectacular view and anchors to tie yourself down while using the facilities. It's that windy.

The South Face of the Aiguille du Midi, one of the classic rock face climbs in the Alps. You can see a rope team of climbers in the middle just above the roof. The Aigulle du Midi is part of the giant spires called Aiguilles, that loom over the town of Chamonix France, the hub and birthplace of Alpine climbing.

This rock tower presents a facinating study in contrasts. The North side faces the town with a sheer wall of ice and rock, a picture of wilderness. However, on the top is a giant TV transmitting tower, and the telephriques make the steep journey to just below the summit. Hollowed out in the summit tower is the landing station complete with a bar and resturant. As an alpinist you take this nice civilized cable car to the station, go thru several doors marked "danger" and instantly you are on this narrow, 3 foot wide snow and ice ridge. On your left is a 1000 foot sheer drop to the rocks below. On your right is several hundred feet to the glaicer. The path ahead is along this knife edge ridge to the glacier below. No safety here other than your own skills.

Make it down safely and you're in the heart of the Alpine world. The route to Mt. Blanc, highest peak in the Alps lies straight ahead. The Cosmique Arete to your right and behind you is the South Face of the du Midi. It was a wild and thrilling place.

The car is the clue ...

Our Chamonix home: Least you think the life of a pair of traveling Alpinists is a succession of gnarly ascents, followed by the finest dining and lodging that Europe has to offer, au contraire! Here's the reality, tent camping in the community campground out back behind the village. If we're lucky, our towels would have unfrozen by the time we come back. The inflatable pink flamingo uniquely identified our camping site on our Euro travels.

Ok, lets warm up and get back on some rock ...

On top of the world, or at least the Third Flatiron in Boulder Colorado. Both of us looking about 25 lbs lighter. Those were the days. A climbing road trip meant at least in part, big pasta and mexican dinners with lots of beer flowing freely - Margaritas in Rick's case. Calories? who cares? With a younger more active metabolism and humping loads of gear up and down mountain trails, food was fun. But I digress.

The Flatirons are 3 large rock formations behind the city of Boulder that look just like an iron stuck in the ground at a steep angle. The 3rd Flatiron is probably the most famous 5.3 climb in the country. About 800 feet high, it's just about the perfect rock climb. Easy rock, we only put in 1 or 2 pieces of protection in each 150 ft pitch. Just lots of rock, altitude and fun in a great location. We did a 5.6 variation for the last pitch just to mix it up, but you can take it at the 5.3 level all the way up. A great climb, I'd do it in a heartbeat if I was back there again!

This is a transition from friction climbing to traditional. This is the Leopards Wall in one of the quarries at Bellefonte PA. Limestone provides the base, while some other mineral provides those exfoliated patches. Standing at a distance it looks like a leopard spotted coat. The angle is pretty steep but not vertical. Those patches are the holds, sticking out a whole quarter of an inch off the main wall. Pinch, grab, smear, edge, curse. That's pretty much how it went. Edging my foot on those tiny edges made me wish for some stiffer rock shoes. My feet were cramping by the end. Once again, the protection was limited to very little to none. Typical slabs. It looks like I found a bolt just beneath my feet so I wouldn't hit the ground at least if I fell off. That was a good thing.

Another view of the 3rd Flatiron in Boulder. This time we're just a couple of pitches up. In the upper distance you can see the town of Boulder.

Not all rock climbs are sublimely inspirational. Somethings they are just, well, lets just say Nature has a sense of humor ...

This is the rock formation, The Unmentionable. Located in Pinnacles National Monument off the California coast. It was a great little bolted climb. The rock in the park was an interesting comglomerate with giant pebbles embedded it. Pretty soft and rotten in a lot of places, the only protection was generally bolts. We did this and few other climbs and moved on, heading toward Yosemite.